Donald O'Brien Movies

It is the 19th century in Italy, and Maria (Angela Bettis) has joined a convent in order to explore her strong feeling that she has a calling to become a nun. She has adapted to live at the convent quite nicely, and is relatively untroubled, but a cholera outbreak sends her back to be with her family for a while, near the steaming peak of Mount Etna. She enjoys her freedom to move around the countryside, and is wooed (unsuccessfully, it seems) by a charming young man named Nico, but returns to the convent when the danger is past. There, she is troubled by the thought that she truly loved Nico, and that her calling may not be as firm as she thought. When she learns that Nico has married her sister, she nearly goes mad with self-recrimination, but eventually weathers the storm. All the dialog in this Italian-made film by Franco Zeffirelli is in English. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this sword-and-sorcery adventure, a hero faces many foes in order to lay claim to a magical weapon. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A team of scientists and explorers follow a trail of pilfered corpses to the Pacific-island domain of a hand-wringing mad doctor (Donald O'Brien) who performs bizarre, tortuous experiments on living and dead specimens in his jungle laboratory. After a drastic reduction in the size of the team thanks to the Doc and his zombie hordes, the survivors try for a desperate getaway -- but not before the cannibals capture, strip and body-paint the team's requisite buxom blonde (Alexandra Della Colli). A suitable "B"-side to Lucio Fulci's own island-themed gore epic Zombie, Francesco Martino's Dr. Butcher, M.D. (an abbreviation for "Medical Deviate" according to the lurid promotional materials) is actually a composite of two separate films. The pre-credits prologue is cobbled together from bits of an unreleased film entitled Tales That Tear Your Heart Out which were tacked on to Martino's cut, originally titled Queen of the Cannibals, by American distributor Aquarius Films. The end result is completely senseless, but fun for gore-hounds, who are treated to impromptu surgical tortures, zombie gut-munching and death-by-outboard-motor. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Euro-sleaze merchant Joe D'Amato probably thought he was bringing something new to the exploitation field by fusing elements of the long-running softcore Emmanuelle series with the cannibal subgenre foisted on the viewing public by such directors as D'Amato and Umberto Lenzi, among others. The end product is merely excruciating tedium punctuated by occasional kinky sex in the first half of the film and cheap, gag-inducing special effects in the second. The threadbare plot involves the investigations of a glamorous journalist (Laura Gemser, then-current star of the Emmanuelle series, though not actually playing that character here) into the cannibal proclivities of a certain Amazon tribe. After viewing documentary footage of cannibals torturing, executing and devouring their enemies, she apparently still wants to learn about such behavior firsthand and journeys down the Amazon with a research team to find the tribe in question. Naturally, the entire group falls into the cannibals' clutches, leading to endless messy scenes of people being carved up, impaled, disemboweled, split in half and (of course) eaten. Too gory for softcore fans and too dull for gorehounds, this is basically a film with no target audience whatsoever. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Half-breed Keoma (Franco Nero) returns to his border hometown after service in the Civil War and finds it under the control of Caldwell (Donald O'Brien), an ex-Confederate raider, and his vicious gang of thugs. To make matters worse, Keoma's three half-brothers have joined forces with Caldwell, and make it painfully clear that his return is an unwelcome one. Determined to break Caldwell and his brothers' grip on the town, Keoma partners with his father's former ranch hand (Woody Strode) to exact violent revenge. ~ Paul Gaita, Rovi

Two opposite brothers are the focus of this western where one brother heads to a whorehouse and the other brother goes to a Mormon church. ~ Rovi

It is only with some reluctance that big-time hood Alphonse (Lino Ventura) allows himself to be persuaded that a major painting-theft planned by some formerly small-time gangsters is a good idea. He gives the idea his backing and support and winds up holding the bag for the crime as the others escape. On emerging from prison, he wreaks havoc on his betrayers, until a pretty girl stops him in his tracks. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Characteristically breaking with tradition, director Robert Bresson presents a realistic, unique view of the life and death of Joan of Arc. Using a script based on the actual transcript notes taken during her trial, Bresson focuses on the psychological and physical torture that Joan had to endure, showing how these techniques were used to break her resolve and cause her to eventually recant her faith. With impeccable historical accuracy Bresson re-creates the story of the peasant girl who, after leading an unsuccessful revolt against the government, was brought to trial, convicted of heresy, and burned as a witch. However, Bresson shows Joan (Florence Carrez) as a woman more sophisticated and calculating and less naive than she has normally been represented. His Joan, while more real, is no less heroic than the traditional Joan. This unusual approach is characteristic of this unique director who defies classification as either a traditional or "new wave" filmmaker while being highly respected for pursuing his own individual style and vision. Robert Bresson has been called a poet and philosopher with a camera, preoccupied with the idea of predestination and spiritual grace. In Proces de Jeanne d'Arc, as with all of his films, Bresson imprints his own personal signature. The film is tightly constructed and stripped to the bare essence of the material. Bresson has made only a handful of feature films, yet he is one of the most discussed and revered figures in cinema, creative, original and unique. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi